BOTTLED BLISS

A must-have collection of classic and cutting edge perfumes

Oct 15, 2008

A must-have collection of classic and cutting edge perfumes

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Steven Krause

From single-note nosegays to complex bouquets, floral fragrances are as varied as, well, flowers themselves. On its sixtieth birthday, Robert Piguet's Fracas is still the supreme tuberose. With hints of orange blossom and woods, "it's the little black dress of fragrance—the most chic," says Robert Gerstner of Aedes de Venustas.

In 1917, François Coty married oak moss and bergamot in Chypre (pronounced sheep-re), an eau so popular it spawned a woody-mossy genre. Two years on, Jacques Guerlain perfected the notion by adding a whiff of peach to his Mitsouko. Perfume critic Tania Sanchez calls it, simply, "the best fragrance of all time."

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3 of 9

Steven Krause

BOTTLED BLISS

Based on bergamot, lemon, orange, and grapefruit, citrus scents date back to the earliest eau de colognes. In 1981, Annick Goutal chose zesty Sicilian lemon to invoke the power of a Roman emperor in Eau d' Hadrien; this year, the scent was inducted into the Fragrance Foundation's Hall of Fame.

When Thierry Mugler unleashed his chocolate/cotton candy/patchouli shocker, Angel, in '92, some called it an oriental; some a chypre. Others said it blazed its own trail: that of the desserty, vanilla-infused gourmand. Mugler said it was so sensual, you'd "want to devour the one you love."

An herby fougère (pronounced foo-jair; "fern" in French), Davidoff Cool water might seem like the odd man out—the green oak moss and coumarin spritz is, after all, meant for men. But woman appropriate, says Sanchez: "On a hip Japanese girl I saw recently in the street, Cool Water was kind of exciting."

Ben Gorham, a devilishly handsome, tattoo-covered fine artist, launched Stockholm's Byredo Parfums earlier this year. Each of his five scents is based on a memory: The woody, juniper-berry-and-pine-needletinged Gypsy Water, for instance, recalls the gypsies who washed their clothes in the river by his father's house in Italy.

Swiss perfumer and blogger (read his musings at Tauerperfumes.com) Andy Tauer's aim for Tauer Perfumes "isn't to become large and omnipresent, but to remain truly niche and do what I love most: creating fragrances." But with Sniffas raving about quirky splashes like the rose, jasmine, and cedar Le Maroc Pour Elle, his under-the-radar status is already endangered.